Brilliant Venus enters into conjunction with M45, the Pleiades in this image taken on the night of April 2, 2012. Venus shines at magnitude -4.4, about nearly a thousand times brighter than Alcyon, the brightest star in the Pleiades at magnitude 3.0. Venus passes near the Pleiades about every 8 years. At the time this photo was taken Venus subtended an angle of only 25.4 arc seconds, less than the distance between the two stars close together in the center of the bowl in the Pleiades. Venus only appears so large here because it is tremendously overexposed. The spikes around Venus are caused by diffraction from the aperture blades in the camera lens.